Evony's bombardment of the internet with their sexy ads and torrents of comment spam are quickly making Evony one of the most controversial and hated websites on the internet. This article looks at some of their more questionable activities.
What is Evony?
Evony, once known as Civony, is a free-to-play, browser based MMO. It's a turn based system where you build a city and conquer your 
neighbouring cities. To do this you have resources and a population, you just tell them what you want built, and if you have the necessary resources, they will build it. Once a building is built you can level it up, allowing you to get more resources, train new people or learn new technology, etc. Once you have a fair sized army you can start attacking other players and seizing their cities. There are a few other real time strategy, or RTS, browser based games out there like Evony (Wild Guns and Ikariam to name a few) but none have had such an aggressive marketing campaign when compared to Evony. It seems you can't go anywhere online without running into one of their ads, and there has been a lot of controversy in regard to some of the tactics Evony has been using to reach their market. If you want to know more about how to play Evony check out Bright Hubs Evony beginners guide.
Evony's Marketing Strategy - Sex and Boobs
You've seen the ads, even if you haven't realized it. I know you have. It's entirely possible you thought it was an ad for a medieval themed adult site. Evony ads have been getting more and more racy as time goes on. I know what you're thinking, “So what, sex sells.” and that is proving to be true in this case. Over the past two weeks I've watched the Evony sites Alexa rating gain over 150 spots. At the time of writing, its Alexa rating is at 576. Personally, I have no problem with seeing sexy women in ad campaigns. I can't help but wonder if in this case, will (or should!) an ad campaign that has nothing to do with the product, help or hurt Evony's future.
Ads, Ads, Everywhere - Suspect Tactics to Force Evony Ads to Your Site
The Evony ads lack of relevance aside, there have been tons of complaints all across the internet from bloggers and webmasters. They say that Evony has opened a multitude of Google Adsense accounts, under different URLs that all point right back to Evony. This means that as soon as the blogger or webmaster blocks one Evony ad, another pops up. They can't seem to stop Evony from advertising on their websites. One blogger went so far as to write a tutorial on how to block Evony ads. He explains you need to block 30 different URLs in the content filter.